V 
Dr. DAVID SHARP, F.RS. 
It would not be fitting that a new volume of the Zoological Record 
should appear without some notice of the death of the late editor, 
Dr. Sharp, which occurred on 27th August, 1922, at his home at 
Brockenhurst in the New Forest. Ilis connection with the Record 
commenced in 1885, when he undertook the preparation of the section 
on Insecta, and in 1891 he became the responsible editor of the entire 
work. On the completion of the fifty-seventh volume dealing with 
the literature for 1920 he resigued the editorship which he had held 
for thirty years. Such, however, was his enthusiasm for the work 
that he offered to continue to be responsible for the Insecta, and we 
believe that he was working on the preparation of the matter for 
the present volume during the last few days of his life, though he did 
not live to complete his task. 
Dr. Sharp was born on 15th October, 1840, at Towcester in North- 
amptonshire and it was after the removal of his father to London that 
he came under the influence of Herbert Spencer who was for some time 
an inmate of his father’s house, and there can be no doubt that the 
keen and logical quality of Dr. Sharp’s mind was largely due to 
his early association with that eminent philosopher who gave him 
much encouragement and assistance in his early studies of Natural 
History. 
Destined by his father for a commercial career, Dr. Sharp, not 
finding it congenial, decided to enter the profession of medicine, and 
after studying in London and Edinburgh he graduated in 1866 with 
the degrees of M.B. and C.M. He gave up medical practice in 1884 and 
was then able to devote his whole time to Entomology. In 1890 he 
accepted an invitation to undertake the charge of the insect collections 
of the University Museum of Zoology at Cambridge ; he retained this 
post until 1909 when, having built himself a house at Brockenhurst 
overlooking one of the most beautiful parts of the New Forest, he 
retired thither for the remainder of his days. 
Most of I)r. Sharp’s multitudinous writings are systematic works 
on the Coleoptera to which he devoted the greater part of his life, but 
more, perhaps, than any other of his contemporaries he had a wonderfully 
